The Impossible Mister Time
by SalixInflixiInflictum
Summary: If you drew a time-line of Lily Potter's life it would look like a maze. But for the head of Temporal Investigations at the D.O.M. that's perfectly normal- What isn't is the strange man who appears impossibly in all of history. Add a temporally misplaced Potions Master, a time-bent elephant and her family and you get either a mess or a grand adventure. Lilly isn't yet sure which.
1. Chapter 1

The Department of Mystery's discovery of alternate dimensions in 1891 had been met, at first, with excitement. But once the investigation had gone further, every Unspeakable involved was filled with a growing horror- For 'alts', as they became known to those who dealt closely with them, were not created naturally by time branching on its own into all its infinite possibilities. No, alts were created solely by time travel. Anytime some clever young thing _knew_ it hadn't gone this way and made it happen anyway, there was a split in time itself- which was becoming a massive web of tangled timelines with no sense of order or regulation. And of course the Ministry couldn't have that.

So the Temporal Investigations division was born, it's Agents assigned with the mind-churning task of keeping track of time travelers in their own reality, to stop them creating new realities, and occasionally(and very carefully) to explore the alts that already existed. Life in the Temporal Investigations unit in the Department of Mysteries had its own unique version of normal, where secrets were considered not only acceptable but absolutely essential, and tense structure was flexible out of sheer necessity. It even had its own set of baffling jargon. All the alts were assigned numbers and letters for the purpose of organizing something whose very nature defied linear organization, and all the senior Time Agents had long memorized the list. Between that and all the other little linguistic oddities, it usually took months for a new Unspeakable to catch onto the language and Lily Potter could not help but feel a little superior for speaking it so fluently.

Lily's job, mainly, was to keep the chaos of time travel and alternate dimensions neat, organized and efficiently run. She did not know it, but it was the fourth most difficult job in existence- the first being the man who runs the world government by consensus in one of the more extreme alts, and the fifth being the proud tradition of Icelandic naked dragon wresting(A sport pursued only by the mad or desperate.)

She was _very _good at her job.

In her office, Lily shuffled the papers on her grand oak desk, sipped her tea and waited for the next disaster to occur. It shouldn't be long now, she hadn't had one in hours. Absently, she reached forward and adjusted the little brass name plaque facing toward the door, which read:

**Miss Chime**

**Head of Temporal Investigations 2033-2058**

**D.O.M, M.O.M, Britain**

The dates on the plaque were specific to her department as most departments did not inform you of the year you would choose to retire in advance, but the rest was standard issue for the D.O.M. Her real name was an open secret in the office since being the daughter of a celebrity is not conducive to anonymity, but she stubbornly insisted on the use of her code name because code names were Protocol. And at times it was Protocol alone that drew the line between her unit being the thing which controlled the chaos, versus being the thing which caused it. Even with the rules in place, sometimes the difference blurred into something that she hoped rather than knew, and one of those times was just about to happen.

Her office door creaked open, and the instant she saw the look on the intern's face she knew the disaster she had been waiting for had arrived. She set the three dimensional causality matrix, used for the difficult task of visualizing the mess of timelines(though at this point she had it nearly memorized) and looked up into the panicked face of the fresh-from-Hogwarts young man code-named Mr. Willbe.

"I...Miss Chime?" Squeaked Willbe in tones of quiet dread. "I, er, have a problem."

"What have you done, Willbe?" She asked in her most forbidding voice, mostly out of a mischievous urge to see what would happen. Willbe gulped, eyes screaming distress signals that she paid no attention to.

"I've created an alt that isn't on the matrix." He said, closing his eyes in dread.

She groaned, rubbing her temples. "Willbe, you aren't even a real field agent. You just deliver messages to agents afield in the far alts. You've got a Homer," the D.O.M. slang for a homing portkey equipped to travel through dimensions, "which takes you to the agent, you give them an envelope while touching _nothing_ and it blips you back out. You've even got boots charmed not to hurt bugs or plants, and your own magically provided air supply. How the hell did you manage to create an alt?"

He winced out the next words like they were trying to claw their way from his mouth. "...I saved someone's life."

"_Willbe! _That is bloody rule number two, second only to not messing with your own past! I thought I'd trained you better than that!" She burst out, highly scandalized. "Was it your long lost love or something? Because I'm not sure how much more of that I can take, it's bad enough having to interact with the personnel from the Love Department."

"No, definitely not." Willbe said with a small amount of distaste. "My Homer got hit with a stunner in 64L in the Grindlewald Wars, when I was giving a delivery to Agent Springs. I though it was fine, it blipped me right out again...only, the screen that tells me what timeline I'm in was blank. And the next place it took me, there was nobody there but a man bleeding out on the floor and I recognized him as a D.O.M. Time Agent from some of the alts-he's not one here, but he is in most of the C and D branches. I deliver to the C branches sometimes, so I just figured that was where I was and the next letter was for him. So when I saw him dying on the floor, I panicked, cast a bio-stasis charm and hit the emergency return button while holding onto him." Willbe looked at her fearfully, taking a deep breath before continuing.

"Then of course it should have been caught when I re-entered the department with him, but everyone is out on other cases so it was only Sally manning the check in point... And, well, she flipped and we cast a ton of healing charms and eventually figured out it was poison and gave him the antidote and..."

Figuring out where this was going, Lily groaned again. "And then when the emergency was averted, you finally remembered Protocol and did a temporal placement scan. And he wasn't from C, and he isn't an agent at all wherever you got him from. And you have only a vague idea where that was since the homer is damaged and the placement spell only tells you A or D or whatever, not the specific number of their branch, so you can't just put him back."

Willbe nodded miserably. "And now there's almost certainly another branch off that's not on the ministry matrix, which will have to be mapped in order to keep our calculations accurate. And I have no idea how to locate it."

"Ah yes. Another hunt for lost time-lines, just what I wanted this week." She muttered.

"There is also another problem." Willbe said timidly. "What should we do with the man I rescued? I can't put him back, and he's still knocked out, so I put him on the couch in the staff room."

Lily rubbed her temples again. "Merlin. I don't know, take his wand and hit him with an enervate, explain there's been a time accident and he's in the D.O.M. If he's an agent in a few realities, he should be reasonably bright and unlikely to panic. When that's done, send him in to me and I'll try to figure out what to do with him."

Willbe left the room with his shoulders slumped in disgrace, and Lily went back to her papers. She didn't look up from them until she heard raised voices yelling indistinctly and a loud bang coming from just outside her office. Leaping to her feet, finger on the release of the wand holster strapped to her arm, she cracked the door open slowly and peered suspiciously around the corner of a wall.

The tableau she saw made her goggle, and after twelve years in the Temporal Investigations Division, four of them as Head, Lily was not a woman accustomed to goggling.

"You will explain to me as succinctly as possible what the hell is going on, or I will curse this idiot into oblivion." Snarled a silken, deadly voice at a trembling Sally, who was sitting behind her desk in the reception area and looking like she might faint. The man who was doing the threatening held one wand to Willbe's throat and one clenched in his other hand, presumably Willbe's. Lily immediately felt about a thousand tiny bits of every emotion trying to escape her stomach via her mouth. Swallowing, she put on her Division Head face and walked easily around the corner.

"Damn it Willbe, if you had mentioned who it was I would _never _have told you to try and take his wand, even if he did look knocked out at the time." She drawled, looking coolly at the threatening man. His eyes widened and his face paled.

"Lily?" He asked, with hope and with pain.

She met his eyes. "A different one. You're here because the Department of Mysteries is mucking around with alternate dimensions and as you'd expect, there's been a mistake. One that has just saved your life, if I'm not mistaken. If you'll release my message boy and come into my office, I'll give you some more answers. Willbe's harmless, I promise. You could cream both him and Sally him in a duel anyway, so you might as well give him back his wand."

His eyes glittered at her, his face unreadable. Then, very slowly, he lowered his wand, stepped back and tossed Willbe's back to its owner without glancing at him. Willbe caught it backwards and stumbled sideways in relief. Sally burst into tears.

"Willbe, go fill out reports and start figuring out what you're going to tell Mr. Musterion about this whole mess. Oh yes you _are_ doing it yourself, don't give me that look. Sally, go find a handkerchief and a cup of tea and come back when you're not hysterical. Mr. Snape, if you'll follow me?" She turned on her heal and walked back into her office without looking to see if he had followed. Sitting down in her big red leather chair, she watched him glide through the doorway, scanning the room efficiently but thoroughly within seconds and turning his eyes back to her.

"You can sit, if you'd like. You'll have a lot of questions, and unfortunately I will as well. We're not actually sure what reality you came from so I'll have to ask you about your history to determine how far away yours is from ours." She said briskly, trying not to stare at him. 'Merlin, why is my life so complicated?' she wondered. 'Well, because I'm the head of the bloody time travel department, that's why', she answered herself.

"I assume you intend to send me back?" He asked coolly. Perhaps he had determined that if she was not going to be emotional, he wouldn't either. Or perhaps he'd figured out she wasn't her grandmother. Whatever.

"That's a bit of a complication, actually. Willbe thinks he's caused a new reality to form when he saved you, one where you disappeared instead of your body being found. Which in your case will make more of a difference than you'd think. If that's the case we can't return you, and if we don't return you, that will be the case. Don't worry if you don't understand it, circular logic and time travel go hand in hand."

"I follow you perfectly. If do you return me there will be no new reality. Is that your plan?" He asked in an accusing voice. Clearly he had already guessed what that would entail. Lily shrugged and decided not to sugar coat her answer.

"To prevent the split, we'd have to kill you in exactly the way you would have died and pinpoint the exact time, reality and location to dump your body. If there isn't a new branch, finding the right time line would be nearly impossible. Over all, it's just easier and less bloody to fill out the papers for a new accidental time branch and a misplaced Severus." He briefly froze at the use of his first name, once again staring at her appearance as though stunned .

"Then what do you intend to do with me?" He asked, less hostile and more confused.

"No clue, this is all a terrible mess." She said, and smiled at him apologetically. He blinked, looking dazed. Oh, yes- she'd been told she had her grandmother's smile. She stopped smiling and kept talking. "It's not entirely up to me, but I'll have more influence over it than any other one person. My best guess is that they'll end up offering you a job in the Department of Mysteries under a standard unspeakable contract so you can't tell anyone about this department, and just let you stay here." She waived her hand vaguely around. "That's how we got two of old Herbie Bashwood the janitor, and that's the most similar situation to this that I can remember happening. The other option is finding the new branch, voluntary obviation and you just turning up alive where you were, and I'm not sure the Head of Mysteries will go for that because it could cause _another _split. Would you be opposed to starting life over in a new reality?"

Snape sat there wearing the face of someone mentally sorting through multiple time lines. He looked at her rather intensely and replied after less time than she would have expected, "There is nothing in my old reality I wish to go back to. I...once contemplated becoming an Unspeakable, before other events prevented it."

"I know. In the realities where you did join you've mostly worked the temporal division. Your code name is Mr Tick. I've met you a few times, you're very efficient. That'll count in favor of you being hired, if it's what you want. My code name is Miss Chime, by the way. I'd prefer that title in public." Her tone was friendly and professional, but in her head she was having a battle between not meeting his eyes so she wouldn't stare and it being unprofessional to avoid eye contact. Merlin, this was going to be complicated, even after she told him who she really was. And as for Lily, well, she had her own issues with this situation.

He cocked his head. "Is there already a Severus Snape working here, then?"

"No. You're dead here, died in the Battle of Hogwarts being bitten by a giant snake. Is that the same for you?" She said in a business like tone. He responded in like kind.

"Yes. In the Shrieking Shack." He gave a shudder, but it seemed to be one more of distaste than fear.

"Alright. That lines up with the temporal reading Willbe got from you. You seem to be from a very close reality to ours, the same main branch- the one we call A branch. But for confirmation, what did you do for a living?"

He shrugged and said expressionlessly, "I taught at Hogwarts School for sixteen excruciating years, the last of which was as headmaster though it was a sham."

"And I am assuming you were a Death Eater?"

He looked at her calculatingly and did not reply.

"If you weren't, you'd say no. Alright, Order member?" She continued.

He nodded stiffly.

"Feelings on Harry Potter?" She asked.

"An arrogant twit too-like his father. I wish I could have saved him." He said, staring into space, then blinked and asked with deadly seriousness, "Did the Dark Lord Fall?"

"Yes. He's gone." She replied succinctly.

Something in the man's frame seemed to relax, but she couldn't put words around what it was. After a moment, he looked up into her eyes and asked what she was sure was the real question he had wanted to know the instant he saw her.

"How is it possible for you to be here, Lily? Are you traveling forward in time, or are we in the past and you have simply memorized the future? If the realities are similar, why do you look visibly different? Are you the same Lily at all?" He was demanding by the time he reached the last question.

"No. I'm not. You're years into your future. I'm just a descendant of hers. Similar faces, same name, totally different people. I'm sorry if I raised false hopes. Lily Evens did not live here, either."

He looked at her with a face that did not show what he was feeling. After a long moment, he gave a miniscule shake of the shoulders and said in a more sneering tone, "So Potter did live, then?"

"Yes." She replied simply.

"Good." Snape said, looking deeply annoyed.

She thought about saying Harry was her father, but decided to wait until this Snape knew her a little better before making him aware of how closely related she was to someone he'd disliked. After all, he had a bad track record with the distinction between children and their parents.

"You know me as 'Mr. Tick', but you called me Severus. Is it not Department of Mysteries protocol to use only a code name?" Snape said suddenly. Of course he would have gone over the previous conversation with the new information to check for inconsistencies. She cursed mentally. From Lily Evens, his first name was perfectly acceptable- from herself, it required an explanation she wasn't sure how to give.

"It is. As Head of Temporal Investigations, I have known so many of you- Some so well and some so little, that it is hard to keep track." She said with a shrug.

"That reply leaves far more questions than answers." He pointed out, narrowing his eyes.

"I know, but I was hoping you'd accept it anyway. Is there any chance of you being satisfied with it?" She asked hopefully.

"No." He said haughtily.

"That is a pity, because it's not your business and I'm not going to tell you unless there is a reason you have to know. If you do stay with the D.O.M., not knowing secrets is a frustration you'll have to get used to. Is that still what you wish to do?"

He shrugged, letting the issue go for now. "I have little else to be doing here and no wish to return. Besides, I think I would find it interesting, which would be a pleasant change."

"Good. I'll let Willbe present the problem to the Head and when he's nice and upset, I'll swoop in to pitch the job recommendation as the solution in a pleasant, this-will -make-your-life-easier, I'm-doing-you-a-favor kind of way. Knowing old Musterion, it will work swimmingly. He's a force to be reckoned with, but one that's easy to steer." She said, smirking.

He looked at her with curious eyes. "You were not in Gryffindor." He stated. "But you are too warm for Slytherin. Ravenclaw?"

She shook her head and looked at him with a teasing smile and a raised eyebrow. "Always the Professor, so quick to judge by House. Maybe I shouldn't let you do it to me. I will say, however, that I was not a Ravenclaw."

He tilted his head very slightly to one side, intrigued. Before he could comment, she continued,

"But a bit more important than my old House is what to do with you for tonight. It's against protocol to leave non-Unspeakables in the Department alone for obvious reasons, so you can't stay here unless accompanied. And I'm sure they won't let you leave the Ministry before you're cleared to know the things you already do about this department. I have no wish to stay here over night, and the only person available who I could assign to it is Willbe. If you wanted to get past Willbe you just would. So I think we should go speak to Musterion before he leaves."

Snape nodded, getting to his feet. "Very well." He said.

They found Willbe in the hall, looking slightly green but determined.

"It's time, Willbe. You go in first for tactical reasons, I'll come in and smooth it over, and then Snape comes in and we sort it all out. Easy-peasy, done before dinner." Lily told him confidently. He tried to smile and nod and almost managed it, starting to walk towards the Department Head's office.


	2. Chapter 2

A/n: Thank you to Wilhelm Wigworthy and Notwritten for your reviews! I really appreciate feedback and am glad you guys like my eccentric ideas

This chapter is mainly character development and set up, and next chapter is when we'll really get into the over arcing plot and life as temporal detectives, as well as meeting a few familiar faces. I would love to hear if anyone has comments, suggestions, insults or flattery. I'll be updating frequently this week since I have a bunch of this already written, and then I will move to once a week updates most likely on Sundays. Thanks for reading!

Obligatory "I don't Harry Potter, and am making no money from this".

Chapter two

"_You did WHAT!?" _roared Department Head Musterion's voice through the closed door. Lily smiled in satisfaction. Snape looked at her in amusement.

"You don't seem overly concerned about young Willbe's well-being." He commented dryly.

"Oh, he'll be fine. I have the final say on who gets fired in my department, he'd have to do something worse that this for Musterion to go over my head. Just about thirty more seconds, I think." She said, and they both stopped to listen.

The shouting did indeed go on for about thirty more seconds. There was a dreadful pause as Willbe's voice started to say, "Sir, I-"

Lily winked over at Snape, who only looked back coolly as she opened the door to walk inside.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, sir, but I've been brainstorming and I think I've come up with a solution to this mix up." She said, smiling shyly at Mr Musterion.

He raised his overly bushy eyebrows, still red in the face. After looking at her calm expression a moment, he seemed to deflate. "Yes? Good, well, at least _someone's_ taking the initiative around here." He shot a look at Willbe, who cowered. "Whole business of having a time travel department, branching realities, dead man waiting in my hallway...pfha." He said in a mutter like a simmering pot.

"About that, Mr. Musterion-I've had two thoughts. The first is that at this point, putting the man back is going to be a nightmare-dimensional location, anti-split procedures, memory wiping, the whole hypogriff. So what if we didn't put him back at all?"

Musterion glowered, his huge graying mustache trembling. "And what do you expect me to do with him, then? Keep him as a pet?"

"No, I think you should hire him. He's been an excellent agent in many realities, no one is expecting him to return in his own reality, and I've already gotten him to agree to an Unspeakable contract." She said in understated helpful tones.

The department Head looked thoughtful. "You got him to agree? Well, that is convenient, I grant you. Wouldn't have to muck around with memory charms- dead man alive years after his death without knowing why himself is a mess. Dead man working for the Department of Mysteries is a mystery, and adds to our reputation. Very well, I'll give him an interview. What was your second thought?" For all his apparent bluster and simple mindedness, Musterion never missed a thing and seemed incapable of the act of forgetting.

"The other half of the problem is mapping the new reality and filling out the papers, yes? Well, Willbe has said he'd like to do more than be a message boy. If he wants to be an agent, he needs to learn to clean up his own mistakes. Make him a probationary junior agent- if he can map the split and tie all the loose ends prettily, he'll keep the position, if not he'll go back to filing like he did before. I'll keep an eye on him to prevent any more mistakes, and if it works out, Willbe will become experienced enough to make no more mistakes and you and I won't have extra work to do." She said smoothly.

Musterion looked over at Willbe speculatively. "Putting on the pressure, eh? Well, well. Yes, let's see how he does. That'll teach you to make mistakes, boy-you'll have to go and fix them so that I don't have to. Good. That wraps that up, then. Go ahead and send in-" He glanced at Willbe's report. "Mister Tick, and I'll see what he's made of. You two can wait outside."

They nodded and left. As soon as the door had shut, Willbe hissed, "You had to go and dump it all on me? I mean, I know I-" He stopped short at the cold look she was giving him.

"Willbe, you just made a Department-Head-shouting-his-head-off-worthy error, and I came in and talked Musterion into promoting you instead. You want to be an agent? Good, well, now you're an agent. You don't do well? Then you wouldn't be happy as an agent anyway and we'll find you another place in the Department. Buck up. Snape, he wants to interview you, I suggest you head in. Good luck, not that you'll need it." Lily turned to the ex-Professor, completely ignoring Willbe's look of dawning wonder.

Snape looked impassive and glided in to Musterion's office.

They heard the indistinct rumble of Musterion's talking voice, then the velvet drawl of Snape on his best behavior. Their conversation lasted only a few minutes, and Snape opened the door.

"He's hired." Boomed Musterion from behind his desk. "Papers all signed and everything, did the vow myself. He thinks in the right sort of twisty way, surprised he didn't end up here in this world anyway. He'll be given an advance pay check tomorrow to get his own living quarters somewhere in London. He's signed the contract and taken the Unspeakable's Vow, you'll show him the ropes tomorrow, and it's all worked out. Easy-peasy. Now get out of my office and go have some dinner or something, it's getting late."

"Yes sir." Responded Lily and Willbe, Snape just giving a slow, dignified nod.

Once they were out of the office and a bit down the hall, Willbe said quietly, "How do you _do_ that, mam?"

"Practice, Willbe. I have brothers." She said simply. Beside them, Snape laughed rather nastily.

"I pity them." He said in a way that implied he didn't, eyes sparkling with amusement. They arrived back at the Temporal Investigations offices quickly. Sally froze when she saw them, a teacup halfway raised to her mouth and a handkerchief dabbing her face.

"Sally, this is our new agent, Mr. Tick. He will not threaten you again, and if he does, threaten him back because you now control his payroll paperwork and other small methods of vengeance. Now go finish whatever you were finishing and get out of here, it's past quitting time. You too, Willbe. It's almost seven, go home or to a pub or something."

"Yes mam." They chorused. Willbe grabbed his things and fled, and Sally took her tea and some files towards the filing room. Lily turned her eyes to Snape, looking thoughtful.

"Well then, Mr. Snape. It seems you have a few choices. You can stay on the couch in the staff room, but I don't recommend it since it's not comfortable and we have no food to speak of. I can lend you the money for a room at the leaky cauldron, but I warn you that it hasn't been _that_ long and you will probably be recognized by ex-students who think you are dead." Lily said.

Snape grimaced. "I could alter my appearance with charms, but I'm not sure it would be worth the trouble. The world will find out I am not dead soon enough."

"True. But it doesn't need to tonight if you don't want it to. There are still some people who may have a favorable reaction to your being alive, but as you can't explain what's happened because of your Unspeakable Vow, that might be overly complicated to deal with tonight. The only option I have left is that I have a spare room in my flat, and you're welcome to it for the night. If you'd prefer the couch, the Cauldron, or talking to the Malfoys about rooming at the manner or something, that's fine. But my offer stands." She said, looking at him. 'This is probably very, very stupid' part of her mind told her, but she ignored it.

He was trying to read her face, she saw, but was apparently finding it too complicated because she felt the subtlest, most delicate brush against her Occlumency shields. Naturally, being an occlumens was required for high level positions in the D.O.M. She raised an eye brow at the contact to let him know that she had noticed. His visual scrutiny intensified and the legilimancy pressure disappeared.

After a pause he said, "Thank you. A room would be convenient." There was an unsaid question hanging around the sentence, something along the lines of, 'You deliberately sold that as the best option, I noticed, and you didn't have to offer at all. What are your motives?'

Ignoring the things he hadn't said, she headed for her office as she replied, "Good. Well then, up, up and away. Tonight we can Floo directly out of the Department-this place is worse than Hogwarts for changing itself around and being generally maze-like, so I'll give you a real tour tomorrow when I'm not so tired. I've been here for more than twelve hours today. There was a disaster at six in the morning again, though thankfully that one wasn't caused by my team. Time turners. Why they allow students to use them is beyond me. If it were up to me, I would never send a single one to Hogwarts again." She ranted as she picked up her jacket and bag from behind her desk, walking up to the fireplace.

"I have never understood the baffling logic behind that decision either. Only to trustworthy students, they say, but each Head of House decides privately who is trustworthy, and I don't even trust all of _them_. And they don't even have to tell the other heads of house who is now capable of time travel! It's madness. The number of times I've found or suspected time-turned students committing crimes that they will never be punished for because they had an alibi is simply disgusting." He contributed acidly, scowling deeply into the growing fire. Lily nodded in righteous agreement, picking up a handful of Floo powder.

"People just never seem to understand that alibis don't mean a damn thing in a world where time travel is an option. So many annoyingly simple minds that won't take obviously important things into account because they can't handle complexity." She said in disgust, wrinkling her nose. Then she shook her head and sighed, turning back to him. "I'm going to go through first to tidy up a bit- I'd appreciate it if you would wait maybe five minute to come through. The address is 2321 Emerald Place, by the way."

He looked at her in mild curiosity, but agreed. Lily threw the powder into the flames, hiding her squirming emotions. 'Stupid, stupid stupid!' she shrieked mentally, jumping into the flames.

To adequately explain what Lily did next, it is necessary to tell you about the library in her childhood home.

Her father had some sort of complex about dead war heroes, she was certain of it. It was as if he took it as his own personal duty to remember each and every one of them daily, and to this end he had commissioned so many portraits that the walls of their house were reminiscent of Hogwarts. As minor obsessions went, it could have been far worse- it wasn't as if the man had a shortage of money or many other things he splurged on, apart from his children and quiditch. Most of the subjects of the portraits were very grateful, an interesting company calling down the stairs to the children or passing messages from room to room if one got on their good side. Yes, most of the portraits seemed very happy with their portrait existence- all except one.

It was no ordinary portrait, of oil paint and simple enchantments. It was a Memory Portrait, of the kind that hung in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts, made from all of the person's memories spelled to their image, with animatory and sentience charms woven into the canvas. They were capable of giving advice and comment as though the real person was there. Whether they really counted as people was debatable- they could simply be _very_ good copies. Ones who learned, appeared to feel, and insisted that they _were _people. Lily had a muggleborn friend who was very into science fiction, and the issue with Memory Portraits seemed similar to that with sophisticated androids and artificial intelligence in those novels. Regardless, the ministry had erred on the side of caution-it was illegal to purposefully destroy a Memory Portrait without its consent, though the punishment was not as severe as for murder and they held no other rights.

This particular memory portrait hung in the Potter's library, its large guilt frame taking up a good part of one wall, and on the rare occasions the subject was present at all he was usually sneering insults at anyone with the name of Potter. Lily had avoided the library in her early years because she thought it was boring. It was not until she was seven that she started venturing into the dusty room- Harry may have kept the library in Gimauld Place, but Ravenclaw he was not and Ginny had always been more interested in physical activity than in books. Lily had started visiting the library as a refuge of silence in her noisy, brother-filled house.

The first time the portrait had seen her he had frozen, eyes wide in shocked. After the initial introductions, he had been quietly aloof for several weeks, but he seemed to be in his portrait much more frequently now that she visited library. She got so used to his presence that it no longer registered as odd with her- she walked into the library and he would say, "Hello, Lily." and she would answer, "Hello, Severus." and sit down to read.

And then one day when she was nine, the day after her brothers had gone away to school, she had run into the library crying, slamming the door and curling up to sob on the floor. The portrait had gazed at her at a total loss for several minutes-getting children to cry was a thing he understood quite well, but getting them to stop was not something he'd really attempted much.

"What's the matter with you, girl?" He'd asked finally, disguising his hesitancy with a haughty sneer.

She blinked her wet eyes up at him in surprise. "Oh...I... sorry, I forgot you were there. It's just...my brothers went off to school today."

Snape rolled his eyes. "And you'll miss them so?" Sarcasm dripped on every syllable.

She snorted and glared at him. "No, of course not. It's just...every year that they go off to Hogwarts without me is more they know that I don't, more things they have over me. I hate it. I read more and get better grades than they do anyway, why can't I go to Hogwarts now? I'm ready. It's stupid."

The portrait looked at her speculatively for a moment, and summarized in his own terms, "So you are upset because you want to beat your brothers in scholastic achievement, and feel at a disadvantage because of your age?"

She nodded.

"Hhm. Well, if learning will make you stop sniveling in my library, perhaps I can help."

"Really?" She asked, wide eyed.

"I was a Professor you know, I _can_ teach." He had drawled.

At first they met just on weekends, but Lily's parents, though loving, were very busy with their important jobs as Auror and Quiditch star, respectively. They rarely got home before five or six, but Lily got home at three. After a while Snape's tutoring became an everyday activity after Lily's primary school, out of sheer boredom and loneliness. Lily even managed to sneak her father's old potions kit into the library to learn to brew, which Harry only found out about years later. By the time she was ready for Hogwarts, Lily was...well, not quite unrecognizable from the little girl who'd waived goodbye to her brothers Albus's first year, but certainly very different. She was now used to constant challenge, had already successfully practiced the basic manipulation techniques Snape had taught her on her brothers, and sneered as naturally as she smiled. When she left on the Hogwarts express, she was working her way through the last of the third year's material.

Hogwarts was actually something of a let-down for her- her advanced knowledge alienated a lot of her peers, and she was utterly bored in classes- until she discovered that Snape had a portrait there too, being a former Headmaster, and her more advanced lessons resumed.

She wasn't sure when exactly they'd made the leap from tutoring to friendship-maybe sometime in her second year, or maybe it was just a slow transition over time. But she had been very lonely and it had happened, and to add to her already complicated life, it had never stopped. Though over time, it had changed. And she was not sure it had been for the better.

The moment she arrived home, she called out, "Hey, you here?"

"What is it? You look a mess, have you actually been at the Department since six this morning? It's past seven, girl!" Growled a sardonic voice from one wall.

"I know, you were waiting, I'm sorry...but I need you to go to Hogwarts until tomorrow. I'm having... a guest, and I want to avoid the complicated answers to the simple question of why I have a portrait of you in my home." She said, looking into his dark eyes.

The portrait of Professor Snape looked down his hooked nose at her, eyes hooded. "You wish me to leave so that you can have...'a guest'." He said delicately. His face gave away nothing, but something in his voice hinted at future danger. She let her face become a mask as well.

"Yes. I would explain more, but I don't have the time. He'll be here in around four minutes and I have to tidy up so it looks like I had a reason to come through early." She pushed on. "Please, can you go and come back tomorrow? Not morning, but after I've left for work, or when I've come home?"

Instead of obeying, he said, very low, smooth and quick, "You have never asked me to leave when you have had company in the past." His eyes noted her every reaction, and she could tell it was only by force of will that he had not commented on the fact that she'd asked him to leave all night and morning. "And you clearly expect 'he'll' be here all night." He added in a voice like acid melting through velvet. Never mind, she thought, no force of will here.

"Come on, Severus, please. I'll explain it all later, and despite how it looks this isn't a romantic thing- not that it should matter if it was! But really, just it's a new D.O.M. agent who needs a place to stay." She snapped.

"Then why do you have a problem with _my_ staying?" He hissed.

"Why do you have problem with _going_?" She fired back. "You're acting jealous. You're a portrait, Severus! You have no physical form, and I do. Leave me to my evening and I will speak to you about it later!"

He blinked, face going blank. "Fine." He said acidly, and swept dramatically from his frame.

She breathed a sigh of relief, then snapped herself out of her broodings and ran into action, first collecting any photos of her parents and sticking them in a drawer, though leaving those of her friends, brothers and cousins up-it would look strange to have no photos at all. Knowing Snape, he may have already guessed she was Harry's daughter, but if he had she would bet he would want to avoid thinking about it. It was his first night in another time- let him, he had enough to deal with. That done, she ran around like a possessed thing, doing every house work charm she knew in the space of about a minute. The last dish was flying itself to the sink when Snape arrived in the fireplace. Merlin she loved magic.

He looked quickly around in a way that left her with the impression that he had just memorized the room.

"Are you hungry?" She asked. "I don't have anything prepared but I have ingredients for cooking."

He nodded slowly. "I suppose I have not eaten since dinner yesterday, before the battle started. It has been...a long day."

She laughed a bit shakily. "Merlin that's right! You've just come from the day you died. Or didn't, in this case. Alright, you sit down. I can offer you a choice of calming draft, hot tea or a glass of wine, for nerves. I'm going with the latter, I've had a hell of a day too. Then I can cook and you can ruminate and stare at the fire, or something."

He frowned. "I do not like to be useless or having nothing to do but ruminate. I am capable of cooking. You sit, and have your wine."

"No, it's my house and you're a guest, more or less. I can't do that. Maybe...you cook, I'll prep, and we'll drink wine standing in the kitchen complaining about the idiotic, simple minded policies of the Ministry and Hogwarts?" She asked.

A tiny amused half smile appeared at the corner of his mouth for just a second. "That will do." He said.

An hour later they did sit down, on opposite sides of the kitchen table, with roast chicken and vegetables between them. They were snickering into their wine.

"And then he has the nerve to tell me that he's never even seen 'one o' those lit'le 'ourglass fings' before, despite the fact that I've just seen two of him robbing the cauldron shop together!" She snorted. "We go check his shed and sure enough, there's the stack of solid gold cauldrons that went missing this morning-but he says he has no idea how they got there! So I go to bind him and the bugger slips a hand under his robes and disappears. And where do you think he went?" She asked, grinning.

"To rob the potions shop with his past self and make a quick getaway." Commented Snape, rolling his eyes.

"Of course he did. And we didn't catch him for a good few months. Though why he bothered to help with the robbery when he knew he wouldn't get away with it is beyond me. Ah well. Johnny always was a mysterious guy. He used to hock illicit potions for me, in school." She said reminiscently. "We had a good little business going, my brewing, him selling."

The ex-potions professor immediately got a deeply disproving frown on his face. "Illicit potions sales?" He said ominously. She chuckled.

"All over and done with, I promise. Quality checked, and nothing dangerous sold. Just hangover potion and Warnigan's Waker to NEWT students, that kind of thing. We never would have gotten away with it if you'd been the potions master, of course, but you weren't then." There was a lot more to that story, but she wasn't going to tell it right now.

"Damn right you wouldn't have." He rumbled. "So you broke school rules flagrantly, worked with people like Johnny Shunpike, who sounds a bit like Mundungus Fletcher-"

"Oh, very like, Dung was Johnny's mentor. They were always out together in Nocturne Alley, smoking foul cigars and talking 'business'." She commented lightly, eating a bite of chicken and sighing in contentment.

"My point exactly. You worked with him, and yet had no trouble trying to apprehend him later. You now enforce rules instead of breaking them. What changed?" He demanded.

She shrugged. "I got a new job."

He stared at her for almost a full minute. "You were absolutely in Slytherin." He said in a confident purr. "You're very good at acting warm, but you yourself are far from it."

She grinned, chuckling into her wine again. "Alright, you got me. I'm just hard to read because I'm a Slytherin from a pure Gyffindor family. I understand love and kindness. And that they are powerful motivating factors."

He shook his head, that little half smile playing at his mouth again. "You are magnificently cold. I am positive you control the Temporal Investigations department with an iron fist."

Her eyes danced playfully. "Oh, no. Nothing so unsubtle, not if I can help it. I control the department with a golden tongue."

He laughed outright, the first time she'd seen him laugh here. Well, if you didn't count his portrait. Merlin, they looked so exactly the same.

There was a bang and a scuffling by the front door and they were both suddenly and silently on their feet, wands in hand. It sounded like someone was trying to force entry into the flat.

"Alohamora!" Chanted a voice, to no avail. Lily's door would never be so easy. She paced silently to the door, Snape at her back.

"Liiiiilly!" Called a loud, pathetic sounding voice. "Open up, I...I kn-know you're in there!" the voice slurred. Lily's shoulders relaxed at once, her expression going from guarded to annoyed in an instant. She sighed.

"Oh no, not tonight." She muttered. Snape's eye brows rose in curiosity, his posture relaxing as well.

"LILY!" Shrieked the voice.

"Alright, alright!" She shouted back at the door, motioning with her wand to remove the locking spell. "Stand back a bit, please." She muttered to Snape, who did. She opened the door a crack to peer around it, and it was immediately shoved open by a very familiar looking aristocratic blond man. For a confused moment, Snape though it _was _Draco, perhaps ten years older than he had last seen his godson, when he realized that the face was a little too wide, the jaw-line different and the eyes more like Narcissa's. Oh.

The man staggered, leaning against the wall, not looking around. He launched straight into a conversation without greetings. "Lily, do you think me'n your cousin'll ever get back together? I mean, what's it mean, 'a break', anyway? It's ridiculus, the nerve, I mean I… So I got drunk. I need to use your spare room. Can't go back to the Manor like this, and the…the press could catch me at a hotel..." He drifted of, blinking, as he caught sight of Snape. "Lily? What's Snape doing in your hallway? I thought..." He wobbled.

Lily sighed. "It's too complicated for you right now, Scorpius. He's in the spare room, though. If you want, I spose you could stay on the couch."

Scorpius scowled. "I hate couches." He said firmly. "Couches are beneath my dig…dignity." It was impossible to tell if he was joking or not. Lily rolled her eyes.

"Well...alright, do you want me to side along you to Vince's? He won't mind, I'm fairly sure." She asked reluctantly.

"Would you?" Scorpius asked gratefully. Lily rolled her eyes at him and turned to Snape. "Do you mind if I just apperate him to Goyle's? He's...distraught, because his relationship with my cousin is slowly combusting."

"It's not my fault! Weasleys, they get so bloody _upset_ about the stupidest things…" Scorpius slurred.

"Yes, I can see that." Snape drawled, ignoring Scorpius's interuption. "Do whatever you deem necessary."

"Great." She said. "I'll be back in a moment." The two stepped into the hallway and vanished with a crack.

Snape closed the door, and surveyed the apartment again speculatively. It was cluttered, but with interesting books and magical objects, lived in rather than messy, everything in cool shades of blue and green with polished wood shelves and low tables. Photos hung around the walls, waiving, smiling or making faces. The one nearest to him showed Lily, the recently departed Malfoy, a red headed young man with a foxy face, devilish grin and too many freckles with a large, muscly man who looked suspiciously like a Goyle. Snape shook his head at the idea of a woman like this Lily being friends with a Goyle. His eyes kept tracking around the room.

The only portrait in the house was large and gold and empty, and there was something about it that was bothering him. He walked closer, trying to figure out why. Ah-that was it.

The chair by that portrait faced subtly towards it, and a forgotten teacup sat on the low table nearby, handle pointing toward the chair. The chair was also the most worn one in the house, though it was the same pattern as the others and presumably purchased at the same time. Lily was the only one who lived here, so she spent a large amount of time looking at this portrait, possibly conversing with it. He came nearer to examine it more closely, but found no hint as to who sat there in the plain green background and simple, empty chair.

There was a crack in the hallway- Lily was back. He sat down at the table as she came in, and they went back to their dinner.

"Sorry about that. Scorp is just going through a hard time. You know how it can be." She said, spearing a now rather cold vegetable.

"Yes. Though I must express myself surprised at a Potter and a Malfoy being anything other than enemies. I'm assuming it's Potter?" He added, trying to keep the venom from his voice but not quite succeeding.

"Yes, it is. And you're not the first person to think it's strange he and I are friends. It was worse for my cousin, though- He's a Weasley." She said, eating another cold potato.

Snape froze, mouth slightly open and one brow raised, torn between saying '_He_?' and 'Weasley?' but both seemed rather obvious, so he went with, "Yes, I would imagine so." Connecting things in his head, he asked, "That would be the red headed young man in the pictures?"

"Yep, that's Hugo. He's the only other Slytherin in my family, even though the Potter-Weasley clan is enormous now."

Snape shuddered. "I would rather not discuss that while I am eating."

She snickered. "Fair enough. I think I'm about finished, though. I was just planning to read for awhile and go to bed. You'll find your room is more like a small library with a bed in the corner than it is like a guest room with some books. You're welcome to read anything you find in there, though treat anything from the black shelf with respect and of course don't touch the Crowely memoir with your bare hands."

"You have a copy of the Crowely memoir?" He asked in curiosity. "I didn't know you had an interest in the dark arts."

"I'm high up in the Department of Mysteries, forbidden knowledge is what I do. Oh, yes-that reminds me. In lieu of an heir, your books were auctioned off after your death and Hermione Granger bought most of them." He looked scandalized. "I've ended up with a few through her, including some that are Prince family heirlooms. It'll be a wrench to lose them, they're beautiful, but I got them for free and you have more claim to them than I ever will." She said generously.

He stared at her. "Forbidden knowledge is what you do, and you would give me back my rare books?"

"Well, they're all potions and spell craft books, so I made notebook copies that I can use for reference in my work room without worrying about wrecking them. So of course I'm keeping the copies." She said reasonably. "But the physical books look nice and I'll miss them, so it's still a noble sacrifice and don't you forget it."

He snorted, trying to stop himself from smiling for the fourth time that evening. "Yes, of course. And what books of mine do you have?"

"About twelve of them, not sure of all the specific titles. You want to see them?" She asked.

"Of course." They stood, and Lily waived her wand lazily at the table. The dishes and food floated away into the kitchen.

She lead him back to a large bedroom with arched windows that overlooked the city, and floor to ceiling, wall to wall bookshelves. A desk and a table sat in the middle of the room, stacks of books huddled under them packed closely together, like small creatures trying to keep warm. Both desk and table were covered with parchments, quills, notes and yet more stacks of books. A small bed crouched in the corner like an after-thought. It was covered in dark green cushions, all lined up on the side of the single bed against the wall, with a reading lamp next to it as though its main use was to be read on. Snape approved of the room immediately.

Lily had walked across the room and knelt next to a row of books on the second to bottom shelf.

"These are yours. These four are the heirlooms that I've managed to save, the rest just rare."

He came to kneel beside her, staring intently at the shelf. "You have Octavius Prince's potions diary?" He asked in surprise.

"And it's been dead useful. He was brilliant, your great grandfather." She commented with a smile. "Now, I want to finish _The Ever Changing River: Diary of a Time Traveler. _It's from the 1880's so it's a bit thick to get through, butI think I met the author back when I was an agent. I'll be by the fire." She announced. On her way out, she stopped at the tabled and carefully swept up a collection of papers and pictures into a file, shooting him a "don't ask" glance as she did. Though she'd moved quickly, he caught a quick flash of a grainy, black and white photograph of a man in a bowler hat, which was made interesting only by the careful way she treated it and dropped it off in her private chambers before moving to the living room to read.

In a few minutes he joined her, a book under his arm, and the rest of the evening was spent in companionable silence.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I'm about to go through and reply on the reviews page, but for the two non-member reviews thank you for your feed back! J, I'm glad you like it and Guest, I have to admit that I don't have any Scor/Lily planned for this fic, but I have a lot of mystery, adventure and ridiculous time-travel shenanigans and I hope you like it anyway!

Keep a lookout for next chapter on Friday. I can safely reveal that chapter four will contain more Scorpius, time traveling elephants in Malfoy Manor and strange occurrence that will lead to an even stranger adventure.

**Chapter 3**

The next morning, everything went completely fine right up until it all went wrong.

Lily Potter strode through the crowd and straight down the grand, curving flight of steps in the middle of a square in London. The stairs had been spelled to be ignored by Muggles, and were currently covered in a stream of ministry officials winding downwards. The days of entering via disguised toilet were long past.

Severus Snape followed the red haired young woman, disguising any anxiety he felt with a sneering face and fast walk. They made it to and through the security point without trouble- apparently his unspeakable status had gone through, because the young man at the wand weighing desk said only, "Thank you, Mr. Tick, you're all set."

They went in, Lily breaking off from him after saying, "Oh, there's Auror Jones in line for tea. I can never catch him without his partner, and she always prevents me from making any headway on convincing him to switch departments. I'll just go get us some tea, then. Wait here for a moment?"

He nodded his ascent, scanning the room. It had changed a lot since he was last there, though of course that had been in the days it was controlled by the Death Eaters. It was brighter now, noisier, and the rather horrible fountain had been replaced with one of Dumbledore with jets of water streaming from his pointy hat. The sculpture had somehow managed to capture the mischievous twinkle in the man's eyes, and he held a wand and a bag that spilled out what looked suspiciously like lemon drops in one hand, a stone Fawks about to take flight off of the other. Snape scowled at it.

A group of extremely high up officials including the Minister herself swept into the Atrium, marching along importantly.

"So you see, Madam Minister, that's why I think it's important that we cut the funding for the Department of Magical Games and Sports and give it to the committee for International Magical Cooperation." Said a middle aged red haired man in a pompous tone.

"While I agree with you, Percy, I'm not sure it's going to be that simple. Also, how many times am I going to have to tell you that you don't have to call me, 'Madam Minister' all the time, I mean, I know I just got the position but-" The Minister froze, causing an undersecretary to run into her and burst in a flurry of apologies. "Um. Percy, just to verify, who would you say that is twenty feet in front of me, dressed all in black old fashioned robes, scowling furiously?"

Percy looked around efficiently and said, "That is Professor Snape, mam." Before his head caught up with his mouth and he froze as well.

The Minister turned to the Auror on her left. "Corner, go and bring me that man." The Auror nodded, looking uncharacteristically nervous. He had changed a lot since his Hogwarts days, but there are a few things that never go away and one of them is a childhood fear of your scariest teacher. He squared his shoulders and marched up to the man in black, calling loudly,

"Excuse me, sir? I have to ask you to come with me." Heads all around them turned to see what was going on, and a few of those between forty and eighty gasped and took a step backward.

"Why?" Snape sneered at him, looking him up and down scornfully, then pausing. "Micheal Corner, isn't it? You blew up your cauldron on the first day of potions class." He added in mocking tones.

"Um." Said Michael. There were titters and excited, confused and fearful murmurs. "I have to ask you to come with me, Professor. Right now." He stood up straighter, drawing his wand. He would not be intimidated by this man anymore!

Snape reacted automatically, his wand out and in dueling stance before the other man could blink. "I demand an explanation, Corner!" He hissed menacingly.

Michael quailed inside.

It was at this moment that Ron Weasley walked in and saw one of his team facing off against Snape. He did not think about which side to take, he did not have to. He ran toward them at full speed bellowing,

"I got your back, Corner! Don't let him get away!"

Snape, eyes widening at the implication, disarmed Corner non-verbally and growled, "What is the meaning of this, Weasley?"

"Hey, you give him back his wand!" Ron yelled.

"Sod off, Weasley!" said Snape, baring his teeth. He would _not_ take orders from Ronald Bloody Weasley, even if the man was now older than him.

In addition to being older Ron was also now much better at dueling, thanks to being an Auror for more than thirty years. His short temper, however, was still the same.

Flashes of light, bangs, and walls of enchantment sprang up between them like a fire. Several random bystanders were stunned by Ron's rapid fire technique and Snape's almost uncanny ability to dodge, deflect and fire back as good as he received. They were both completely in the moment, shrieking insults at each other, when an authoritative female voice yelled, "_STOP!"_

Both of their eyes went to the furious figure striding toward them. "RONALD! What the devil are you doing, dueling Professor Snape in the Atrium! You know bloody well he was never actually Dark!" Shrieked the Minister for Magic.

"But, Hermione-" Started Ron.

"No! Just, no!" Yelled his wife. "Put your wand away, and now!" She turned toward Snape. "I'm terribly sorry, Professor. That was all a misunderstanding that got _far_ out of hand. I asked Corner to bring you over to me so I could ask you how you got here, which he took to mean 'apprehend you.'" She explained.

"And that was something I wanted to help with." Said Ron firmly, glaring at Snape.

"I am sure that it was, Weasley." Sneered the ex-Professor.

"None of that!" Hermione demanded imperiously. "Professor, I do need to know why you are in my ministry, and, well...why you aren't dead."

"Time travel accident at the D.O.M." Called Lily, coming up with two cups of tea. There were general murmurs of 'ah, well, that explains it.' "I knew he looked the same!' and 'oh, right, of course.' The crowd began to disperse, mystery as solved as it would ever get, with the D.O.M.

"Sorry about that, I had no idea they would be here this morning or I wouldn't have left you alone. Here's your tea." She held out a cup to Snape, who looked at it for a moment, then slowly put his wand away, took the cup and said,

"Thank you, Miss Chime." In a dignified way. Ron, seeing this, reluctantly put away his own wand. Hermione let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank you, Miss Chime, well diffused." Said Lily's Aunt. It might seem odd from the outside for a niece to be called by a code name, but only if you were not familiar with how Hermione felt about rules. "How long and how classified is the explanation?"

"Very both, Madam Minister." Replied Lily.

"'Madam Minister?" Asked Snape in a tone of deepest shock with a side of horror.

"Yes." Hermione said in a ha-so-there voice, and turned back to Lily. "Will the Department need anything from me to fix this?" She asked professionally.

"Oh, no. I can't say much, but what I can say is that we can't put him back where we got him from, and if you want 'why' we'll need a half hour and a private office." Lily replied.

"Well then what are you going to do with him?" Ron asked in suspicion, looking at Snape, who smirked at him.

"We've already done it-we got him to sign an Unspeakable contract and hired him. He'll be a great asset to the Ministry." Lily explained. "His code name is Mr. Tick."

"What?" Gasped Ron.

"Good, that seems sensible. I look forward to working with you, Mr. Tick, should it ever happen." Said Hermione smoothly. "If you'll excuse us, we have a meeting to attend. Ron, you are needed in the Auror department, right now."

"What? Why?" He asked, goggling.

"Because I am the Minister and I say so. Come on." Ron was towed away before he could ask the Unspeakables more probing questions.

"I suppose Granger did not turn out too badly after all." Said Snape grudgingly.

"She's certainly improved life for Muggleborns, werewolves and non-human magic users in Britain." Commented Lily, starting to walk towards the lifts. "The old families generally hate her, and there's been three assassination attempts in the month since she took office. She's even more liberal than her predecessor, and that was Kingsely Shacklebolt."

"I see Dumbledore's schemes worked out perfectly, then." Snape said as they walked into the lift.

"Um. Did they?" Asked the highly surprised man already standing in it.

Snape stared at him intently, back very straight. "Well, considering you're standing here, alive enough to stare at me like a buffoon and the Order members seem to control Britain, I would say so, Potter." He said condescendingly.

Harry blinked and shook his head, looking back up at Snape's sneering face to prove to himself that this was real.

"I'm the head Auror now." He said, as though reminding himself.

"Yes, that's about what I expected." Said Snape, in derisive way that made it clear he was in no way impressed.

Harry turned his eyes to those of his daughter, the elevator sinking down after she'd pressed the correct button. "Lily, why is my dead potions master insulting me on my way to work?" He asked somewhat helplessly.

"Time travel accident." She repeated cheerfully. "He's stuck here permanently, too, so get used to it. Just try to remember that you're older and you outrank him now."

Snape gave Harry a look which said plainly that he would never acknowledge such a thing as long as he lived. They arrived at the Auror's floor after a horror-stricken silence, and Harry edged out, stopping in the doorway to ask Lily, "Are you coming to dinner on Sunday? Your mum is making a ham." In a vain attempt at normalcy.

"Yeah, I'll be there. Good luck with work!" She replied, sunny.

"Er. You too." Said Harry, with one more look at Snape.

The moment that the lift doors banged shut, Lily burst out laughing. "Oh my," She breathed, chuckling. "I don't think I have ever seen him that intimidated in my life! That was marvelous."

Snape allowed himself a tight smile. After a moment, he said, "Why didn't you tell me directly that he was your father?"

"Well because you have a bad habit of treating people like their parents, and I wanted you to have time to figure out that I'm very little like them before you went and decided I'm another foolish, arrogant, fame seeking Potter/Weasley mess." She replied lightly, still chuckling.

He looked at her disbelievingly. "Even though you are a cunning Slytherin Unspeakable with more books than most Ravenclaws? I hardly think I am that blind." He said in mild offense.

"Yes, well, my father hates attention, would give anything not to be famous, and is so humble I think it's actually an inferiority complex. You never noticed that at all." She pointed out.

Snape blinked. "I thought it was an act to fool the rest of the staff whom he pandered to."

"No, he just acted tougher around you because he felt threatened. I mean, you've known him for years, do you think he has the kind of mind to which it would _ever_ occur to live an act for personal gain? It would go against his gigantic sense of honor. If he was poor and starving and someone accidentally dropped a sack of galleons at his feet, he would return it politely and ask where he could find a job. Ah, here we are, bottom floor."

They stepped out, Lily quieting to leave the man with his thoughts. She opened the black door in silence, and they were walking into the Round Room.

"This is the Round Room." She announced. "The walls are about to spin."

The walls began to spin. She took a step forward and said, "Miss Chime of Temporal Investigations, door five."

The room stopped immediately, a door directly in front of Lily. She opened it. "That will work for you now, too. If you don't say anything, it will just stop on its own eventually, at whatever door is least helpful. Each door goes to a different sub-department, which studies something different. There's twelve-Time, space, thought, love, hate, death, life, the soul, magic's source, energy, alchemy, and fungus." She rattled off in a bored voice.

"Fungus?"

"You would be surprised."

They had walked through door five and into a room filled with odd things. One wall was covered in every kind of clock, one wall with shelves of devices Snape did not recognize, and in the corner lurked a huge, squat metal cabinet that looked like it could withstand several blasting curses and a charging bull. Another corner was filled with a variety of baffling measuring tools, a locked glass cabinet of potions, and a giant, sturdy steal box with a little glass window along its length. A beautiful sparkling light showed through the window. A couple desks were shoved up against one wall, but most of the floor was open, with a large ring chalked into the middle.

"This is the work room, where our agents leave and arrive from. I'll give you a rundown of what everything in here does later. For now, the two cardinal rules to remember in here are: do not ever open the big, glowing steal box without proper handling procedures- It's filled with raw time, which we place into time turners. We used to just keep it in a big glass bell jar that you could reach into, but when we were invaded by teenagers and Death Eaters in '96 there was an unfortunate occurrence..."

"Ah. Yes, Yaxley's baby head incident. I have heard about it." Snape nodded, looking with interest at the box.

"Yes. The other cardinal rule is to remember that the cantankerous looking iron cabinet is full of time turners and act accordingly. We used to keep them in that pretty glass cabinet so you could see what was there, but Neville Longbottom shot it with a stunner by mistake and caused a self-repeating loop of breaking and repairing time turners. Luckily Mr. Clock, one of the best head of Department we've ever had, came in from the mid 60's and was able to stop the time loop at a point before they were broken. But we still moved everything into that magic proof iron beast just in case." Lily walked through the door in the back.

"Longbottom always did have poor aim." Snape said, but it was halfhearted. He'd been unable to muster true vitriol toward the boy since he had seen the way he led that ridiculous student rebellion. It may have made his life more difficult, but it had saved several students from death and torture and for that he was grateful.

"He became a Professor, you know. Herbology, took over for Sprout. He was head of house for my brothers." Lily commented as they walked through a high ceilinged, glittering room filled with gold orbs. "This is the hall of prophesy- you'll pass through it a lot, it always seems to appear on the way to wherever you're going, but the only one who works in here is Mr. Foreshadow. It's a bit like being a librarian, being the Keeper of the Prophesies. You just keep them neat and labeled and in alphabetical order, and if someone wants one you verify they're allowed to have it and you get it for them. By the way, don't ever touch anything in here, there's a curse on the prophesies that will give you magically inflicted madness if you try to take one that isn't yours."

"I am aware. Lucius told me about the battle here." Snape replied.

"Good. Ah, here we go, home sweet home." They had reached the waiting area that had been deserted except for Sally and Willbe the previous night. That was not the case today. The room bustled, and the moment Lily walked in she became the center of attention.

"Miss Chime! I've found a loop on the causality matrix that doesn't fit!" called a tiny, excitable man in an exciting tie.

"I am positive that the thing that escaped from the Life Department is making a nest under my desk, if anyone cares." mumbled a gloomy wizard in suspenders.

"Miss Chime, Agent Nick is due to leave on assignment in an hour but he's just come back and now there's two of him in the staff room and he's eating twice his fair share of the muffins!" complained a thin, disproving witch with narrowed eyes. The rule about crossing your own time line existed mostly for those fool enough to attack themselves and to prevent 'armies of one' as they were known. Any time agent worth their wand had a passcode or signal known only to themselves for identification purposes, and kept their own company fairly frequently.

"Ma'm? You remember Archibald Goldman, the Auror? He's just turned up in a broom cupboard on the third floor, covered in mud and two years older than he was when he disappeared ten years ago." Cut in Mr. Sands, Lily's second in command. She rubbed her temples, and raised her hand for silence.

"Alright, in order of how I heard them, Agent Gears, put the matrix on my desk, I'll check it for glitches before we panic about it. Borris, try luring it out with muffins and catching it in a rubbish bin, I hear there's a bounty on it. Miss Flow, I don't care how many muffins Agent Nick eats, it's fine. There are enough muffins for everyone, even for that thing from the Life Department. Sands, send Archie Goldman to my office for a formal interview. And this is Mr. Tick , he's new today."

Mr. Sands nodded. "Yes, I met him next week. Very efficient."

"Good." She said, without batting an eye. "Train him, I don't have time. Oh, and Sands, according to Agent Springs, there will be an incident at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes at three; fetch the temporal cleanup crew just before then. Mr. Tick, good luck."

The rest of the day passed in the usual dancing on the edge on chaos that was life in the Temporal Investigations Department. Lily stayed in her office most of the day, dealing with other people's catastrophes and attempting to fill out standardized Ministry forms for something that did not even fit normal tense structure.

At five o' clock, she filled out her last form. Sands tried to tell her it wasn't her last form, but she informed him that he was wrong. She stood up, stretched and grabbed her bag to floo home, then remembered.

"Sands," She stuck her head out her office. "What happened to Mr. Tick?"

"He was given an advance paycheck and the afternoon off for flat hunting." Sands confirmed.

Lily left with relief, collapsing into her favorite chair like a puppet with cut strings.

"And she returns." Sneered a voice from beside her. "Have a nice time?" He asked with venom.

"Ugh." She said, letting her head flop backwards and closing her eyes. "I don't have the energy for an argument right now, Severus."

"Late night?" He asked, implication written across the statement in bold.

"Yes, actually." She snapped. It had been, they had read for several hours without noticing. "What's it to you?" She snapped, eyes flashing.

He stared at her haughtily for a moment, and slowly deflated. "Nothing." He said, low and quiet, then sighed in pure frustration. "I grow so tired of being nothing more than a memory in the walls, Lily. You… are one of the few who has ever treated me as a human being. Even counting those _before _ I died." He added, sneering, before the expression faded into bitterness. "The idea of losing you to the mundane world is… disconcerting."

"I'm sorry, Severus. I know your existence has never been an easy one." She said, quietly. After a moment where he just stared at her with dark emotions in his darker eyes, she said, "I was up late reading."

He nodded, looking somewhat happier. "Why did you ask me to leave?" He asked with the tiniest note of pleading and a little residual anger.

She took a breath, thinking. Should she tell him about the other Snape? Would that make him feel better, jelous of the living one, replaced? In this mood, she knew that nearly anything she told him would make him morose.

"Because his is a special, time travel related case, and I thought it would freak him out to see you. It was his first night here from the late 90's, during your time as Headmaster. You didn't exactly have a good reputation then." She said, feeling bad about her words as she said them. All technically true, but painting an incorrect picture together.

She felt less bad when his shoulders relaxed and his head came up. After a moment, he asked, "What was so awful about your day that you didn't have the energy to argue with me? I thought it one of your favorite pass-times." He said dryly.

She smiled tiredly. "Oh, you would not believe my day! On top of the ongoing case with Marvo Higgins, the string of burglaries and the ten missing elephants which we are now sure are definitely all the same elephant time-bended, we got two students misusing Time turners, old Archie finally turning up but not the right age to have been gone ten years, and a five year old Uncle George at the joke shop because the new product he and James' are testing worked too well... I swear, for the good of the world's sanity we should ban those two from collaborating, not that they'd listen…"

He let her talk about her day, asking pertinent questions and laughing at the right times, trying to convince himself that hearing about the world was enough.

Snape had settled into the department so seamlessly it began to feel as though he'd always been there within the span of a week. He was, as billed, efficient in everything he did. But there was one task at which he excelled, and it was one no one else had wanted anyway. He even enjoyed it.

"Mister...Tomas, was it?" Mr. Tick sneered, looking down at his paperwork and flicking his eyes back up to the trembling sixth year student sitting in front of the Time Agent's desk.

"Would you care to explain to me exactly what you were thinking when you decided to use your ministry appointed Time-Turner to repeatedly leave the school without your absence being noted?" He fixed the boy with a Look.

"Er...I was, well, there's this girl who lives in London, and I just..." Managed Sean Tomas, rubbing his palms together and looking to the side.

"Mr. Tomas, are you under the impression that your love life is more important than the whole of time? Do you have the slightest idea of what you could have done?" Mr. Tick's voice sounded like he found the whole thing distasteful.

"Well, I mean, I figure that you can't really change the past, it all just kind of turns out the way it was always supposed to..." Said Sean rather doubtfully.

"That is an overly simplistic perspective, Mr. Tomas, and a very convenient theory, which I would guess is why you never questioned it. Do you understand how the time turner you use works, in any way? The theory behind it, or the reasons behind the rules you were given?" The Time agent asked in a deadly calm voice.

"Er...well, no I guess I-" Started Sean, fidgeting.

"And did you ever think to investigate further before using this highly magical, dangerous device you have been given to visit a girl?" Mr. Tick fired.

"I figured you'd never give them to students if they were really dangerous!" Argued Sean, eyes wide.

Mr. Tick sighed a put-upon sigh. "There you are right- _I_ would _never _give time turners to students. That decision was made by the same Minister who insisted that the Dark Lord was gone forever and Dolores Umbridge was a good person to put in charge of children. Fudge cleared the use of registered time turners for the public in 1992, and since that point over 200 alternate realities have been created and countless headaches for Time Agents like myself have been incurred. Over a hundred people have died in time travel related accidents to date, or become caught in permanent, paradoxical loops. Time does not simply 'just turn out the way it was supposed to', Mr Tomas." He reached into his robes and pulled out a small sphere. "You see the lines in this ball?" He asked.

Sean leaned forward cautiously and peered into it. "What is that, some kind of three dimensional maze?"

"No, this is a causality matrix. A map of time as it is now. Before time travel it was a straight line. Every time you loop back on your own time line, you risk further splitting time. It is my job to prevent that." His eyes skewered Sean to the chair, his voice becoming a sibilant threat. "That means that if you ever do anything with that time turner that is not permitted, you will answer directly to me. I am not bound by the same rules as your Professors, Tomas, or even by the ones that apply to most people." Mr. Tick said this with relish, eyes glittering evilly.

"Your current recklessness is certainly appalling but if I ever hear of you doing it again, it will be nothing like as appalling as what will happen to you afterward. Do I make myself clear?" asked Mr. Tick in the low, smooth voice of a natural predator.

"Yes, sir!" Squeaked Sean Tomas, every inch of his skin crawling with terror.

"Good. You may go at your leisure." Mr. Tick turned his complete concentration to his paperwork like flipping a switch, as though Sean no longer deserved one iota of his attention.

Sean ran. He found Professor Longbottom waiting for him in the hallway to deliver him back to the school, and stared up at him with haunted eyes. "I'm so sorry, Professor, I had no idea! I swear to Merlin I will never do it again! I'll drop the classes, I'll never touch a time turner for the rest of my life! Just please, don't make me ever see Mr. Tick again." Sean pleaded.

Professor Longbottom frowned. "Well, it's your choice whether to keep the classes, Sean. But regardless, if you obey the rules set by the Department of Mysteries, I see no reason why you should have to speak with Mr. Tick again. Just...keep that in mind."

"Oh, I will, sir! No one will ever have obeyed the rules as well as me!" Sean swore earnestly.

"Um. Good. Would you wait here for a moment?" Sean nodded. Professor Longbottom hesitated a moment, and then opened the door and walked in. The man sitting at the desk looked up at him extremely quickly.

"Yes, Longbottom?" He snapped impatiently.

Neville froze, instinctive tendrils of dread clenching his middle and his mouth falling open. After a moment, he forced himself to reply in a normal tone, using all of his Gryffindor bravery.

"Just wondering what had gotten into Sean, but now I understand completely." He managed, hoping he didn't sound breathless. "Well, except that I don't at all. I, er. I thought you were dead."

Snape sighed. He had grown tired of the same explanations over and over, so he went with something new for personal amusement. "They needed someone most qualified to scare people into behaving and had all of time to choose from. Who would you assume they would have picked?"

Neville nodded. "Yes, that makes sense. I would have picked you too. Do you need anything else, Pro- er, Mr. Tick?"

Snape smiled smugly and said dismissively to the head of Gryffindor House, "No, Longbottom, that will be all." And went back to shuffling his papers. Professor Longbottom left hurriedly.

It was distracting, how familiar he was. Lily had to constantly remind herself that this Severus Snape hadn't known her his whole life the way she had him. Actively stopping herself from staring at this three dimensional verion of a portrait she'd known all her life was becoming a habit.

The most distracting thing was that she kept getting the feeling that he was trying not to look too long at her either. There was no active tell, no eyes skittering guiltily away when they met-only a impression when their eyes did meet that made her feel he'd been waiting for this glance for hours. It was the way she looked like her grandmother, she knew. Bt that didn't make it any less strange or awkward. It did not help that they were the only two people in the department who regularly staid after hours or arrived before 8.

Currently, it was just past six in the evening, and everyone except Lily, Snape and Borris had gone. Borris was at his desk, muttering complaints to no one in particular, and Lily was in the Records Room. It was a deceptively small space and if you were unaware of its properties, you might think that the Department of Temporal investigations did not have many more records than the average department.

Lily's brows were furrowed in concentration as she read through the file in her hand, dropped it onto the pile she was collecting and absentmindedly flipped the dial on the cabinet from May 2023 to June 2023. She opened it again to start searching determinedly through the new selection of files. A knock came on the records room door and Snape walked in. She jumped slightly, then made herself relax.

"I have finished going over the time-turner records of every Hogwarts student, calibrating the time matrix's and imputing today's necessary coordinates into yesterday's homing devices. Reports are on your desk, as well as a few suggestions about making the matrix's self-calibrating and the homing devices more efficient." Snape stated without preamble.

She blinked. "All of that would have taken anyone else a week. I was depending on it taking you at least till tomorrow."

Snape looked neither flattered nor chastised. "When I work, I focus on it completely. It is not my fault if others do not."

"True. Well, I'll have to come up with more for you to do tomorrow, but for today you can go ahead and head home." She said, starting to look back at the files she was sorting through.

A hollow look came across his face. "It isn't very late. If you are still working, there is surely more to do."

She looked up at him. "It's half past six. Borris is only here because he's avoiding his wife who henpecks him mercilessly. I'm working on a personal project in my spare time. Don't you _want_ to go home?"

His eyes became shuttered, black hair swinging over his face as he shifted weight and said stiffly, "My new quarters are... empty. The only thing in them that is even reminiscent of home is the book collection you returned to me, and I have finished rereading them. Going out in public attracts too much attention. Being an old teacher in a small community is a fast way to a kind of notoriety, and I was not exactly popular." He said delicately.

"Ah." Understanding dawned, and Lily felt a flash of empathy for the looming, haughty man in front of her. "Well, if you really want something to do, you could help me look for sightings of a blond man with green eyes and a gray bowler hat in the records."

"What time period?" He asked, not caring about details.

"Between the time we started keeping records and the present." She smiled apologetically. "Well, I've already covered 1600-1840, and 2000-2022. There's a reason I do this in my own time."

"But you can't travel that far without time sickness and leaving a mark we would see on the matrix." He frowned. "Why not simply identify his time line and find him that way? With someone who has traveled so much, it would be easy to locate."

She shook her head. "No good, he doesn't leave a personal time line behind. Yes, I know that's not possible. Look anyway, will you? If you want something to do."

He shrugged and turned to the nearest filing cabinet. They worked in focused silence for the next forty minutes until Snape said, "Ah. I have found him. Only...no. This cannot be right."

Lily looked up. "How many places is he in at one time?" She asked, sounding vaguely interested but not surprised.

"Seventeen." Said Snape, staring at the file. "But you become-"

"Time sick if you cross your own time line more than five times. Yes. Go ahead and toss it on this stack, I'll go through it with the others later." She said, turning back to her cabinet. Snape cocked his head to one side, looking at the pile she had indicated.

"These are all sightings of this man?" He asked.

"Yes. Those are the ones I've found this month. There are others." She said. "You'll find that if you talk about him in circles of experienced time travelers you'll get the same sort of derisive snorts you'd expect if you started talking about the rotfang conspiracy or the crumplehorned snorcack. There's too many conspiracy theories about him to count. The rest of the Department think he's a practical joke, a myth. They call him Mister Time, say he helps agents in dire need, that he's the guardian of time itself, all kinds of things. But no one really believes he existed- no one can be in that many places at once and not have a personal time line... It's like a person who doesn't show up on cameras or infrared." She said distractedly.

"Infrared?" He asked in puzzlement.

"Oh. Sorry, muggle tech is a hobby of mine, a friend got me into it. It's a sort of sensor that tracks body heat, more or less. Ah, here we go, another report of him. Huh. Walking through every aisle of a library again. He does that a lot."

Snape frowned. "If everyone in this department considers him a prank, why don't you?"

Lily considered for a moment before saying shortly, "I've seen him. He saved my life, my first assignment out, when I was barely 18. No one believes me."

Snape returned her considering look, nodded once and then walked over to the pile of files and began to read without commenting. After a few minutes he sat down on the step ladder and began pouring over the documents. Lily kept looking, kneeling next to the ladder to hunt through the same drawer over and over on different settings, and eventually found two more sightings before she looked at her wrist and realized what time it was.

"Oh Merlin, it's past 11!" She gasped.

Snape looked up. "What? It can't have been that long, surely."

"Apparently so. I just get so sucked into this case that I lose time. Damn, I wanted to look through those files tonight." She said regretfully.

"I have already read the majority of them- I could write a summery, if it would be useful." He offered.

"If you have the time, that would be great. But right now, you should sleep." She said, reaching her arms up to stretch and run her fingers through her hair.

"Very well." He conceded, eyes resolutely not following the movement of the scarlet hair but staying fixed on the files. "I will have the report ready for you tomorrow."

Lily nodded and bid him a good night. After a few minutes packing up, she flooed home, mind still chewing on the frustrating mystery of Mr. Time.


	4. Chapter 4

A/n: Hi all, sorry for the posting delay, I had a nuts weekend. From this point on I will be attempting to post regularly every Sunday and reply to reviewers around the same time. As always I love to hear your feedback and thanks for reading!

**Chapter four:**

It was Saturday, and she was not even supposed to be here. Nevertheless, Lily was sitting at her desk in the D.O.M, calmly listened to today's list of things that must be dealt with immediately, drinking her morning tea and thinking wistfully of breakfast.

"…and Johnny Shunpike was spotted in Nocturne Alley earlier today, trying to fence a vase that is either a _very _good forgery or something that belongs in a museum. Specifically, the Wizarding History Museum in London." Mr. Sands finished.

Lily frowned. "Really? I thought Johnny was still in jail."

"He is, mam. We checked. The vase is also still in the museum, but Mr. Springs informed me next week that it will be stolen on Tuesday."

"Ugh… Dear Johnny, why did you have to pick a life of temporal crime?" Lily moaned, putting her head into her hands. "I could have left you alone if only you'd taken up being a swindler or a mugger or something, but no. It had to be time travel. I suppose it figures, with what we got up to in school… I don't have the time for this. And if I use a time-turner every time I say that I'll look eighty by the time I'm forty. Agent Springs will work Saturdays, put him and…er. Put Springs and Willbe on it, will you? I know Springs is usually a lone wolf regardless of protocol, but his competence should balance out Willbe's lack of experience and I don't have any normal partners available."

Mr. Sands frowned, opening his mouth to fill the air with recommendations against that particular action when the door banged abruptly open, revealing Mr. Sands, this one with five o'clock shadow and a rumpled tie.

"Mam? Malfoy Manor is full of elephants and everything of value on their grounds has mysteriously disappeared. The elephants are also about to disappear, most likely in a puff of tangled timelines." The second Mr. Sands said in his usual even tones. "The you from 6' Oclock says that you should go personally.

Lily sighed. "Fabulous. Marvo strikes again, I assume. I'll need a partner- Sands, go Floo Mr. Tick, would you? There's a man who doesn't mind over-time."

"I already did, Mam. He's waiting for an explanation outside."

She stood up and groaned. The Mr. Sands from six o' clock wordlessly handed her a second cup of tea and she rallied herself enough to march into the main office shared by the Agents and walk up to Snape's desk. He looked up curiously and she managed a tired half-smiled.

"So, Mr. Tick, I need to go question a furious Lucius and Draco Malfoy about something they probably find tremendously embarrassing. I'd really appreciate your presence, partially because I'm required to have another Department member present at questionings and partially because they probably still think you're dead- nothing like a good shock to distract someone into an honest answer." She grinned. "What do you say? I won't force you to face Lucius if you don't want, but it'd make my life easier."

Snape looked considering. "Lucius is a difficult man to get answers from even in a good mood, and I would be unsurprised if he already knew I am alive- the man's information gathering abilities border on the uncanny. I am unsure how Draco will react to me-the last time we met was in a gathering of the Inner Circle. But if you wish, I will come."

She nodded sympathetically. "I'm afraid I do- protocol requires two agents and my available choices are you, Nick and Gears because if I leave I have to have Sands here to be in charge. Nick is too Gryffindor by half, and while Gears is an excellent agent when it comes to bizarre calculations and understanding multi-dimensional paradoxes, I'm not sure his people skills are up to this particular challenge."

He nodded in agreement. "Very well. Let's go."

Lily and Severus walked in through the open front door of the Manor without being questioned, which was proof in itself that something unusual was going on. Lily had expected that any unusual elements would have disappeared by now, since that fit the pattern of the previous cases and it seemed unlikely that there would be two burglars whose operation included a time traveling elephant.

However, Lily's expectations in this case were very wrong. The sound of disgruntled trumpeting and heavy stomping echoed from the vaulted ceilings, and everyone in the manor was dealing with the noisy unexpected in their own way. House elves inefficiently shooed elephants into other rooms or tried to levitate them out, which only resulted in terrified elephants and damage to the house as there were no doors big enough to fit the beasts. Narcissa, Draco and Astoria were all running around demanding answers, bellowing orders and having hysterics in turns as though trading the roles between them. Lucius was verbally abusing a group of Aurors in a menacing hiss in the parlor, and Scorpius watched the entire scene from the indoor balcony, laughing hysterically.

Lily grinned up at him as they passed, heading directly for the little group of Aurors being accused of everything from incompetence for allowing the grounds to be burgled and not taking the case seriously out of prejudice.

"The only reason I wouldn't take this case seriously, Malfoy, is because your living room is full of elephants." Said the amused voice of her uncle Ron. Oh, perfect. Just what she needed.

She walked up with her most carefully blank face on and said without a trace of humor, "Actually, it's just one elephant. And considering all it's been through or will go through today, I feel fairly sorry for it." There was a chorus of groans as the Aurors caught sight of her, Ron's being the loudest of the bunch.

"Not time travel." He said pleadingly.

"Obviously time travel, Weasley, why else would there be Unspeakables here?" Sneered Snape. All eyes turned to him and Lucius spun around on the spot, eyes widening and nostrils flaring.

"Severus." He said in a voice as close to shock as Lucius ever deigned approach. "I had heard rumors that you were alive, but I did not credit them. You are so young..." Lucius's silver eyes met Seveus's black ones, and the ex-Professor suppressed a shiver. Lucius was in his eighties now, and though he was a wizard with fine healers and thus looked younger than he was and would live at least another sixty years, seeing the nearly forty years Severus had skipped displayed on a friend's face was unnerving to him in a way that it hadn't been with Potter and Weasley.

"Since I do not require the constant explanations Weasley seems to, I will save us all some time and assume from your age and acquaintance with Miss Chime that it was time travel and as such cannot be discussed outside the Department of Mysteries." It had taken Lucius roughly ten seconds to recover from the shock of seeing Severus alive again, and now he had turned his still very sharp mind back the business at hand. "I assume you are here to address the theft?" He asked Lily, now completely ignoring the annoyed Aurors.

"Actually I'm afraid they are." She nodded at the Aurors. Ron puffed out his chest, and it took all her will power not to roll her eyes. "I'm here for the time traveling elephant- it's not usually here this long after a burglary, he must've done something differently this time. That, and information about-"

She stopped abruptly, eyes narrowing as she stared fixedly at something across the entry hall. Very quietly she said, "Lucius, have you always had a red and gold striped armchair in the corner of your green and silver themed nook over there?"

Lucius's head whirled around to glare in concentration at the offending piece of furniture. "No, Miss Chime, I have not." He said in suspicious puzzlement, and began stalking towards it.

As one, the Aurors took out their wands and followed. Lily and Snape were already on Lucius's heels, eying the armchair with distrust.

When they were halfway across the room, the armchair spooked. At first it scuttled across the marble floor on all fours, the wooden claw feet clattering and slipping awkwardly. They had nearly caught up when it suddenly reared up like a stallion and became a wizard in red robes who booked it as fast as you would expect from a man being chased by a team of Aurors, Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape all working together.

"Hah!" Called Lily, pushing herself forward like a greyhound. "It's Marvo! SCORP, BLOCK THE EXITS!"

The Malfoy heir, still watching with amusement from above, lazily took out his wand and flicked it at the doors, which slammed shut with finality. The red and gold striped figure of Marvo Higgins spun around, eyes sliding from one part of the room to another as the Aurors surrounded him.

"Expelliarmus!" Shouted Ron, catching the wizard's wand neatly as it flew across the room.

Marvo, looking panicky, grabbed something from his pocket and held it aloft, shouting wildly, "Don't nobody move or I'll drop this and we're all done for!"

Every Auror froze, staring at the thief with apprehension.

"That's a radish." Pointed out Lily.

"That what you think." Said Marvo, grinning evily.

Lily eyed the object critically. "Yes, you're right. That is what I think. Accio radish."

The radish zoomed between them, Marvo trying vainly to hold onto it and the Aurors watching with baited breath. Lily caught it in her palm with a thunk and waived her wand over it interestedly.

"Yep, radish." She said, tossing it to the nearest elephant, and the tension in the room broke into relieved chuckles.

Marvo grinned weakly, eyes still flickering around at all the wands leveled at him. "Can't blame a bloke for trying, eh?"

"No, but I can blame you for burglary and the flagrant breakage of about fifty Ministry time travel regulations." Lily had just enough time to say, before It happened.

There was a sound like a freight train colliding with an impossibly large steel drum, a blinding flash of blue light and an almost solid wall of wind blasted from the center of the manor outwards, knocking everyone off of their feet. The elephants trumpeted in terror, the house elves screamed, squeaked and ran in circles and a man stepped out of the light and wind and looked curiously around the room. His eyes lit upon the elephant and he sighed in exasperation, though it was inaudible with the wind still streaming through the Manor.

"Good gracious. Why any man would do that to an elephant…" he tutted, just loudly enough for his words to be made out by those nearest.

Lily half sat, mind still stunned and hazy from the noise and flash, squinting at the man through the eerie blue light at his back. She could see only a silhouette, but it was enough to make her gasp in recognition.

The stranger turned to a wide-eyed Marvo Higgins and proclaimed in a loud, stern voice, "You, sir, have lost your right to be trusted with the care of this beast. The poor creature is clearly suffering from this outrageous treatment. While I admit that your inexcusable lack of judgment and morality are none of my affair, still I say: for shame, sir!"

The silhouetted figure raised a fist and shook it dramatically at the gaping Higgins before surveying the elephants with a critical eye, walking directly up to one of them and reaching up to grab something from its collar and throwing the object to the ground with a tinkle of glass. Then he grabbed the elephant's lead rope and lead the animal confidently towards the light and paused, looking over at Lily. "A pleasure to see you again Miss Chime, Severus. Do forgive my rudeness, but I must rush- You will meet me soon in any case. Oh, yes and 'look for the thing that isn't there, in the place of black.'" He turned away.

"Wait!" She called. But before Lily had finished rising to her feet to follow, both man and elephant were gone.

There was a brief absence of sound and then the wind ceased and the light went out. Ron said in a stunned voice from his place on the floor, "Lils? What the bloody hell?"

"Don't call me that at work." She said automatically, still staring at the place the man had vanished from. "And I would assume this is the start of a _very _intriguing acquaintance, even if he's prone to cryptic clues. Well, the start for Mr. Tick and I, anyway."

"Indeed." Snape said faintly, looking over at Lily. "The hat that he wore…"

"I would definitely describe it as a bowler." She nodded, and then slowly began to grin. Ron stared at her in bafflement.

From across the room, the indignant voice of Draco Malfoy called out, "Sorry to interrupt your little _rest_, Weasley,but may I point out that the thief is attempting to slip out through the kitchen and my living area still resembles the ruins of a circus?"

The Aurors sprang into instant action, Ron leading the charge to the kitchen after throwing an infuriated look at his school-boy nemesis, Lucius close at the Auror's heels. Lily brushed off her robes and cast a critical eye over the large animals around them. "If that man did what I think he did, Draco, in a few minutes your living room will be empty of everything except Aurors and broken furniture."

"Lucky me." Draco drawled. "What makes you think that that's the case, Li- oh, yes, _Miss Chime?"_ He made the code name drip with irony, and Lily smirked fondly at him. To Snape's surprise, Draco returned it. Something about the expression on his godson's now middle aged face caused a flicker of remorse and nostalgia to come over him, and he cut in before Lily could answer.

"I should think it fairly obvious if one remembers the reason we are here." He said dryly. He cast a silent calming charm on the beast nearest him and approached it slowly, raising a hand to touch a small device hanging from its neck on a long chain, waving his wand at it and nodding. "As I thought- a contained miniature time-turner, spelled to turn once every few minutes and take the animal back a short while, to create the illusion of a herd of elephants while only having to feed and keep the one. Clever, if a touch insane."

Lily nodded. "That's a phrase that sums up old Marvo pretty well. I'm assuming, or at least really, really hoping that our mystery man took the most recent elephant, the one that had already been all the others. Otherwise we're in for an elephant related paradox, and who wants to deal with that?"

"Certainly not me." said Severus firmly. His eyes gravitated to Draco's, and both men kept their faces carefully neutral to cover how awkward they both found the situation.

Finally, Draco said, "I see you aren't dead."

Severus nodded stiffly. "Yes. I see you have a son." His eyes flicked over to Scorpius, who had descended from the balcony upon seeing that most of the chaos was over and was approaching them at a leisurely pace from the stairs.

"Yes." Said Draco stiffly. He drew breath to say something else, though even he wasn't sure what, when there was a loud crash and a chorus of cursing from the vicinity of the kitchen, the door bursting open to release a cloud of brilliantly purple fog, the sound of hacking coughs and Marvo Higgins. The man was grinning like the Cheshire cat and running for an open window so fast that his robes billowed behind him like a muggle super hero's cape. There was the echoing BOI-OI-OOOING of someone running into a hanging saucepan, and Marvo snickered out a "Nehehehe." before turning and seeing the four of them watching. "Oh. Bugger."

All four of them had wands to hand in an instant, Marvo dodging their stunners at top speed. Finally, Scorpius's shouted "Impedimenta!" got him in the leg and his running was slowed as though he was running through molasses. His hands, unfortunately, appeared to be working at normal speed and by the time Lily realized what he was reaching for under the front of his robes, he was already spinning the little gold time-turner backwards.

She managed to get close enough for her fingers to brush his robes as they vanished- close enough to see the turner spin once, twice, three times. She reacted instinctively, reaching into her robes to grab her own time turner and follow, not bothering to give an explanation.

Lily appeared in Malfoy Manor at eight 'o clock that morning to bellow "Stupify!" at Marvo Higgins just before he'd made it out the front door. She grinned in satisfaction as he colapsed and was just going to tie his wrists when she heard a sleepy voice came from behind her.

"Er. What the devil, Lily?"

She turned to find Scorpius watching her bemusedly from an arm chair with an untouched silver breakfast tray on the table next to him, holding a cup of tea. He was an amusing sight for anyone used to his usual impeccably groomed state, with his platinum hair tousled, chin unshaven and wearing a ridiculously plush brocade bathrobe with all the haughtiness of a king despite being barefoot and bleary eyed.

"Oh, hey Scorpius. Since you're here, do me a favor? When I disappear in three hours, tell Mr. Tick that I caught Higgins at eight 'o clock and he's to meet me at the ministry, will you?" She asked, removing the time-turner from the thief's neck and casually patting him down for anything else interesting.

He rolled his eyes. "'Since I'm here?' In case you hadn't noticed, this is _my_ house, Lily, not yours. But fine, yes, I'll tell whatever Unspeakable that you've caught Mr. Stripes there."

"Great, thanks." Lily attached a port key that went directly to a detention cell in the department of magical law enforcement to Marvo's robes, tapped it with her wand and muttered "Portus."

Lily straightened once Marvo had disappeared, brushing off her hands and saying cheerfully, "Well, that's him sorted, though I still don't know what he's done with your patio things, the albino peacocks or the quiditch gear. Or will do, rather."

Scorpius blinked, pushing himself to his feet. "He's going to have stolen my broomstick?" He said, affronted. Having a friend who controlled time-travel for a living permanently effected one's tenses.

Lily considered. "Well, now I think about it… the report didn't actually mention _your_ broom. I believe it wasn't in the shed for some reason."

Her friend smiled slyly. "Ah. You know, I think the old Firebolt 80 has been pulling a little to the left, I better take it in to the shop." He said decisively. "Everything else, fine, whatever, temporal continuity blah blah blah. But… I'm doing you a favor with telling Mr. whatsit about this later, right?"

Lily took in his calculating expression with mild interest. "Yes, and?"

His eyes turned pleading. "Could you see to it that Grandfather's peacocks are tragically never recovered? I've hated the damn things for as long as I can remember. They walk around all cocky like they know something you don't, and they bite and they make this _noise_…" He shuddered, and Lily laughed.

"I'll see what I can do. You going to eat that bacon?" She motioned at the abandoned, still untouched breakfast tray. She never had managed to get her own this morning.

He picked it up protectively. "Yes."

Seeing her expression, he sighed. "Oh, fine. Hey, Boffy!" A house elf appeared, looking attentively at the youngest Malfoy. "Bring another tray up, will you? And some more tea." The elf nodded efficiently and vanished as Scorpius handed his tray over to Lily with ill-grace.

Lily grinned and collapsed into the arm chair next to Scorpius, taking the tray with enthusiasm. "Lovely. Got any pepper?"

Lily took her time getting back to the Department, chatting with Scorpius over breakfast and then Flooing her father to explain why Marvo Higgins was in the cells for a crime he had not yet committed and that yes, Harry still had to send out Aurors when it happened. She timed her arrival at the Department so that she arrived one minute after she and Severus had left, since she didn't recall seeing herself around. She busied herself with paperwork until Snape arrived to fill out their joint report for the incident.

The two of them sat and filled out forms in studious silence for a few mintues before Lily leaned back in her chair, stretching, and asked, "So, how'd it go with the Malfoys after I left?"

He looked reflectively at the ceiling. "Strangely. Once Scorpius had the good grace to inform us that the criminal we'd been chasing had been apprehended hours ago, I spent several long, long minutes attempting to explain to Weasley why searching the grounds would not be useful, after which he and Draco very nearly had a fist fight. Eventually Lucius ordered Weasley's team to remove themselves or face legal action. Then Narcissa cornered me and asked me to tea, very pointedly. I am unsure if she genuinely wishes to socialize, to grill me about my true loyalties in the war, or to poison me inconspicuously." He said dryly.

Lily shook her head. "Nah, if she wanted to poison you she'd never do it on her own property. Probably she just figures you're one of the few people who'd understand their position back then and not judge them for it. The Malfoys helped dad a bit at the end, so they're not really popular characters with either side now. Rich old pure bloods are a dying breed, I think her social circle is fairly small these days. She's even had Andromeda and Teddy over for dinner once or twice since they're the only other Blacks left. I'd say it's probably safe,"

Snape nodded once. "I will keep that in mind. Do you have any other assignments for today?"

Lily looked pensive. "Well, I don't _think_ so. Nothing that's come up yet. Oh, actually." She smiled ironically. "Why don't you go look for 'the thing that isn't there in the place of black'?"

"Hmm. Well, I suppose I have little else to do. Very well. If you need me you shall find me in the D.O.M.'s secret library."

"Lovely. I'll join you there once I'm done with this, I have to be here until six anyway, for temporal continuity." She replied.


End file.
